


Mother Nature Knows Best

by TheDarkFlygon



Series: Prism (Pride-Themed Oneshots) [5]
Category: Caduceus | Trauma Center Series
Genre: Character Study, Chronic Illness, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, LGBTQ Themes, Lesbian Character, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-06
Updated: 2020-06-06
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:55:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24575653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDarkFlygon/pseuds/TheDarkFlygon
Summary: Not everything that is "natural" is good for you, Elena would argue.
Series: Prism (Pride-Themed Oneshots) [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1769908
Comments: 1
Kudos: 2





	Mother Nature Knows Best

**Author's Note:**

> You can have an Elena Salazar character study, as a treat.  
> So, to write this, I channeled my middle/high school self who absolutely struggled with coming to terms with being into girls and, well, identifying wholly as a lesbian. It turns out I'm actually... not exactly that, let's just say, but I hope this somehow gave me enough insight not to make this oneshot painfully insulting.  
> I played around the with the prompt for today, "Nature". It's kind of like last year's, except much less bubbly and more down-to-Earth because ya boi is playing Ace Attorney for the first time and the angst fever has gotten to me again. It was a really fun theme to explore and I'm sure I'll go back to it someday! This is kind of all over the place because I ate sleep for breakfast instead of getting some.

See, Elena has never liked the idea of “what is natural is good for you”. You don’t exactly grow up to think Mother Nature is always looking out for you when she decided you’d be infected with a genetic pancreatic disease as soon as you were born, then decide it’d be a tough deed to diagnose until it’d be almost too late.

So, of course, she’s learnt to appreciate humans’ efforts to combat Mother Nature’s dastardly tricks. Again, it’s difficult not to admire the surgeon who put the pump on her pancreas so she wouldn’t die before seeing most of what the world had to offer (for better or for worse, she realizes it, but she’s always tried to think positively about things), or the person who actually came up with the pump, as much as that person turned to be… yeah. That.

There’s a lot she could say about “nature’s advocates”. You know, that sort of people who will tell you modern medicine is bad and has corrupted what it means to be human, all while conveniently forgetting they’d have probably died from the measles were it not for vaccines. It’s a harsh statement to make, and she knows it, but her patience can only go so far before she just wants to slam her pump inside these people’s faces.

Yes, she’s tried that, and unlike your sister, it didn’t magically cure her. No, she doesn’t trust your pretty crystals (albeit they’re very pretty, this much she can’t deny. The next time she gets a raise, she’s buying herself a Himalayan salt lamp), nor your apparently miraculous herbs. She believes in science, surgical progress, and scientifically conceived, tested, and controlled medicine. You better not slip cyanide in her Tylenol in hopes that’ll “change her mind” or “make her see the truth” (cyanide will just kill her anyway). And, yes, she’s tried checking if she didn’t invent herself any sort of disease for “sympathy points”.

Why would she? Living with the disease is enough. All she wants is for Mother Nature to take back her poisoned gift or, at least, give her back the receipt so she can get a refund on the wasted time engulfed by tests, treatments, post-surgery convalescence, all that jazz. She’s a nurse and she likes to believe her place is by patients’ side rather than in a hospital bed, thank you.

She’s seen too much of Delphi in the news not to be suspicious of people talking down modern medicine and the advancements it brought to most people’s lives. These people were insane, have you seen them? Their preaching of “reconnecting to humanity’s roots” resulted in hundreds of deaths, healed casualties and trauma for more than the Californian population of Angeles Bay, USA. It costed children their innocence, how could she stand there and “let nature do her thing”?!

_These_ people can’t be trusted anyway. They call “remedies” straight-up poisons and “diseases” what is actually harmless and, well, as natural than their “miraculous fixes”, if not more so than them.

Elena has learnt the hard way not to trust them.

She’s been told horrors her young mind never digested, so she vomited them along with her own self-worth and sense of self-love; yet the bitter aftertaste of bile remains.

_You’ve just not met the right guy._

_It’s just a phase._

_You’re doing it not to be “like the other girls”, are you?_

_You’re just confused._

_It’s a fad._

And none of these were true.

Yes, she knew that being a girl attracted to other girls wasn’t the norm, that it wasn’t your average experience. She’s seen her parents, she’s seen her friends, she’s watched TV and played video games. Girls love boys and boys love girls, sure thing, and she’s got nothing against that; but boys love boys and girls love girls too. One doesn’t prevent the other from existing, from thriving.

They never made their mind on that topic. Some will tell you it’s unnatural and, as such, shouldn’t exist, that society’s fads implemented in you the seeds of lesbianism. If you prove them wrong, prove to them homosexuality has happened within other species, has genetic origins and is something you’re born with, they’ll tell you it’s an illness and _now_ they want vaccines to heal it.

 _Hypocrites_.

For once, Elena thinks that you should leave Mother Nature alone. It’s not harmful, it doesn’t take lives, and it doesn’t spoil anyone’s lives to be gay; so leave them be. Let people be themselves and don’t try to retain them, especially when you’re otherwise playing Nature’s advocate and promoting letting diseases rot you from the inside while, no, you’re not allowed to like other girls. _Silly, that’s just against nature!_

Coming to the realization was only made harder by these exact people pressing onto her that she was doing it wrong, that she was confused and lost, that she should shape herself to the “mould”. For a while, she believed it, thought she was just mistaking herself with things she didn’t quite understand; but it turns out that the one time people told her not to let Nature do her thing, she was mistaken, cried about it, and eventually got over it when she learnt that there were other people like her, other people who loved the same gender the way girls were supposed to like boys and vice-versa.

But, like she didn’t listen to them when becoming a nurse “despite her illness” (more like to spite with it and be more than a fragile porcelain statue), she followed her instincts, determined it was all fine and dandy to be into girls, and has never looked back on it ever again.

Despite all the pain following Dr Vaughn and Dr Blaylock has brought her, from the troubles with Stigma to the final fight against Cardia without forgetting the fights in Culuruma, first-degree burns and getting abducted, Elena has never been happier.

It’s easier to forgive Mother Nature when you found the balance between artificial and natural.

**Author's Note:**

> also hi emmy if you're reading this i love you (platonically, of course) and this is for you


End file.
